He thought about running away. He could get in the van—his van—and go, maybe take the girl with him and leave the cop's body in the house. They would know it was him, but by the time they figured it out, he'd be long gone. Off to some other part of the country or even the world, maybe Canada or Mexico. That's where people always went in the movies when they were in trouble. But right away Roger knew that wasn't going to work. It took money to run away, and he didn't have enough to get far. And he didn't know where to go. Once, when he was twelve, his dad took him to a baseball game in Cincinnati, but Roger wouldn't know how to find a place like Cincinnati, let alone Canada or Mexico. And since he didn't know anybody there, he'd be on his own, truly on his own, and he knew he wouldn't last more than a few days, even if the girl helped. And he knew she wouldn't. She'd try to run or fight or yell or scream, and she'd probably get away. So he had to stay in his house.
And besides, he liked being near the clearing. More than the house and more than the girl, the clearing made him feel safe, like he was at home and in the place where he belonged. When Roger went there, he felt capable of doing anything, solving any problem, and if he left such a place behind just because he was in a little trouble, then he'd have to consider himself a fool of the highest order.
He understood then what he had to do. It only made sense, and he should have known the answer from the very beginning.
He had to take the cop's body and bury it in the clearing.
*
It took most of the morning to take care of that.
While Roger carried the body, he thought back to what he had done a month ago, when he had to carry the last girl out there and bury her. That moment marked a turning point of sorts for Roger, and as he thought back on the events that had occurred since then, he couldn't help but think that everything had gone downhill once the last girl died. Nothing stayed the same. The new girl didn't like him the way the last girl did, and now the police had shown up looking for her, something that had never happened, not even once, with the last girl.
It took him longer to reach the clearing with the cop's body than it had with the girl's. The cop weighed more, and Roger had to stop completely once and lay the body down on the side of the path to gather his strength again. When he did, the cop's head tilted back in the grass and gray fluid leaked out of his wounds, bringing the feeling of nausea back to Roger's belly. He swallowed hard and took a deep breath. He wondered if any of the fluid had run down his own back, but he didn't care. When Roger felt rested, he picked up the cop and continued on his way.
Over the years, Roger had thought about why the police never came looking for the last girl. He decided it had something to do with all the things his father had told him while he was dying, the things about the power of the clearing and the way the town used to be run. He knew men used to make important decisions there, but he knew he'd never be involved in any of that. He wasn't smart enough. Even his dad didn't get involved with those things. He was a guy who worked with his hands, not one of the "stuffed shirts" who made the town run.
But a man like Mr. John Bolton did get to make decisions. He was one of the stuffed shirts, but he was also—in the words of Roger's father—a guy who put food on their table and gas in their tank. Roger's dad worked for Mr. Bolton, doing odd jobs at his big house in town. Repairing the mortar on the chimney or tilling the garden in preparation for the summer. His dad told him that Bolton hired him for those jobs because it made him feel good about himself, like it was charity for him to drop a few crumbs to a regular working guy.
"Doesn't matter to me why he does it," his dad had said. "As long as he pays."
Roger came in sight of the clearing. The sky above looked bright, and somewhere behind the trees and the leaves, the sun glowed. It was close to noon, and Roger wished he could be out there at night, when it really felt good to be in the clearing. He felt a little charge during the day, a small gathering of blood in the center of his body and a pleasant tingle of electricity in his member, but it only reminded him of how much more he missed by not being there at night. He laid the cop's body down and looked for a place to start digging. He didn't want to put the cop near the last girl, and some part of him didn't want to put the cop in the clearing at all. But Roger thought the clearing might, in some way, hide the cop's body from the rest of the world. If he buried it there, maybe no one would ever be able to find it.
Roger scanned the ground. He had to move quickly. But something on the ground made him freeze. He felt his mouth open and, a second later, realized how ridiculous he must have looked, like someone on a stupid television show. But he couldn't help it, and he let his mouth hang open so long that his jaw began to hurt.
Footprints. There were footprints on the ground. And they didn't belong to him.
Roger blinked and moved closer to examine them. He decided he must have been mistaken, that he must have seen his own prints from his time out there and thought they belonged to someone else. But when he looked closer and examined the marks and the size, he knew they weren't his. They were smaller than his huge feet, and the shoes looked more expensive. Someone else had been there in the last few days.
Roger finally managed to close his mouth.
He didn't know what to do. No one lived around here. No one ever came out to the clearing. If someone were here, they must have been looking for something.